What is a Visa?

What is a Visa?Visas are official documents that the citizens of foreign countries must obtain in order to travel to the United States. Visas show that the foreign nationals who hold these documents are authorized to travel to the United States. Nevertheless, a US visa will not permit you to enter into the United States and with a visa, you can only travel to a US port of entry. At the port of entry, an immigration officer will review your visa and your documents and grant you entry into America, if you are admissible into the country. Similarly, the immigration officer will determine how long you can remain in America. Generally, visas grant people permission to travel to certain countries and stay in those countries for a certain period of time. Visas will be attached to the passports of the travelers or visas may be issued separately.

The term “Visa” has been derived from the Latin phrase, “Carts Visa” and there are several types of visas. Two major types of US visas are immigrant visas and non-immigrant visas. Likewise, there are different types of non-immigrant visas like, tourist visas, business visas, student visas, work visas, etc. These visas are temporary visas and holders of these temporary visas can remain in the country only for a certain period of time, until their visas are valid. At the same time, immigrant visas are meant for the citizens of foreign countries who seek to settle in the United States and people who hold immigrant visas will not be required to leave the United States. Hence, people who seek to relocate to America can go for immigrant visas and people who want to temporarily visit the country can obtain non-immigrant visas.

Citizens of certain foreign countries can travel to America without visas and to do so they need to meet some eligibility requirements. However, soon after you plan your travel, you will have to learn about the visa requirements of the destination country and that is because the visa requirements differ from country to country. Visas generally expire after a certain period of time but some visas can be extended. At the same time, all the applicants who file applications for visas will not be issued visas and visa applications may be denied for a variety of reasons. People with infectious diseases and people who fail to establish that they have enough resources to support themselves while in America may be denied visas.